KIRKUK: A northern Iraqi police chief and nine other officers were killed in three roadside bomb attacks in the restive province of Kirkuk today, a senior officer told AFP.

Lt Col Zaid Hussein, the top-ranking officer in Amerli town, and three of his colleagues died when a roadside bomb struck their convoy, Col Hussein al-Baiti, an officer based in Kirkuk, told AFP. Four more officers were killed when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in southern Kirkuk province, said Baiti.

And two more cops, working as force protection on a main road near

the town of Daquq, also south of Kirkuk, died

in a third explosion, which also left two of their colleagues wounded.

Kirkuk, a mixed city of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, is the capital of the province of the same name.